This invention relates to carrying out electronic commerce on a network, and particularly to an electronic commerce server and database that provide transaction functionality and content summaries to purchasers, and which refer purchasers to merchant content servers that provide more extensive information on products for sale on the network.
Electronic commerce is traditionally carried out over a network using a commerce server networked with purchasers and merchants. As shown in FIG. 1, such a traditional electronic commerce server system 11 provides substantially all of the functionality needed to carry out buying and selling on a network 12. This includes storing product information provided by merchants 13, accepting requests for information from prospective purchasers 14, and accepting and processing orders.
The number of commerce servers offered by different server vendors is limited. For example, each such server is configured and programmed differently. Thus, the traditional commerce server 11 is complex, expensive, and often requires substantial expertise to configure and operate. These disadvantages allow only the largest merchants to own and operate their own commerce servers.
Rather than operate their own commerce servers, smaller merchants typically purchase electronic commerce services provided by a commerce service provider. In this case, the provider owns and maintains the commerce server, who distributes configuration, operation and maintenance costs across the subscriber merchants, realizing an economy of scale. However, in so doing, the provider usually enforces uniform standards for appearance and methods of doing business to reduce the amount of custom programming necessary in order to economically accommodate several different merchants. Thus, each merchant being served loses a substantial amount of control over the way he conducts business over the network. This restricts the merchant""s ability to express a particular personality and to do such things as develop distinctive trade dress. This places him at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace, especially when compared to those merchants who can operate their own servers.
The service provider""s expertise lies in the acquisition, operation, and maintenance of the commerce server hardware and the commerce functionality it provides to all of its merchants and purchasers. Examples of commerce functionality include taking orders and effectuating payment for any product offered by a merchant.
However, the service provider faces problems with respect to xe2x80x9ccontentxe2x80x9d from the merchant(s). First, content falls within the expertise of the merchant, not the provider. Second, the electronic commerce service provider faces high costs in acquiring, publishing, and maintaining a database of merchant content. This problem is especially pronounced when content from many merchants is stored in a large aggregate on a commerce server, because there is no economy of scale in adding merchant content to a server. The cost of adding an additional content file to a server is not less than the cost to add a similar file previously. In fact, the burden of loading, updating, and deleting content from each additional merchant can greatly increase the complexity and administrative cost of running a server beyond that for the content of the earlier-in-time merchants. Further, a larger aggregate of merchant content on a single commerce server slows the performance of the server.
Thus, under current methods of carrying out electronic commerce, the merchant whose expertise lies in producing and managing content is faced with the choice of operating and maintaining an expensive commerce server or losing control of his marketing to a provider. The provider, whose expertise lies in the acquisition and maintenance of electronic commerce hardware and software, must shoulder the burden of acquiring, publishing and maintaining merchant content.
A better way of conducting electronic commerce is to allocate most of the task of content acquisition and maintenance to the merchant, and allocate most of the task of providing electronic commerce transaction functionality to the service provider. Under this regime, neither the merchant nor the provider would be burdened with tasks outside their respective areas of expertise. The present invention provides a system for carrying out electronic commerce over a network where transaction functionality is provided by a commerce server having a commerce database, while detailed merchant content is provided on separate merchant content servers.
The commerce server maintains merchant profiles in the commerce database. The profiles comprise summaries of the products offered for sale by each merchant registered with the electronic commerce service. Here, the term xe2x80x9cproductxe2x80x9d is meant to include services. A merchant profile also includes a merchant identification number, a list of the payment vehicles accepted by the merchant; a summary of merchant policies; and a summary background of the merchant. In one embodiment, the merchant identification number is the network address of the merchant""s content server.
The commerce server also maintains purchaser profiles in the commerce database that comprise purchaser identification numbers, purchaser payment data (such as credit card and bank account numbers), and billing and shipping addresses.
The commerce server provides transaction functionality that effectuates an electronic commerce transaction. An electronic commerce transaction is the process of selling and purchasing an item over a network.
A purchaser requests the commerce server to send shopping information. The purchaser browses or searches for products on the commerce server, and data regarding products and merchants is retrieved from the commerce database. At the purchaser""s request for more information on a product or merchant, the commerce server refers the purchaser to an appropriate merchant content server, which contains much more detailed information about the product and merchant than is available from the commerce database.
While browsing or searching the merchant content server, the purchaser may select one or more products for purchase. When the purchaser indicates he is ready to effectuate such a transaction, data concerning the selected product or products are sent to the commerce server. The data include information sufficient to identify the product, purchaser and selling merchant. The commerce server communicates with an external payment system to debit the purchaser""s account and credit the merchant""s account, effectuating the sale. The commerce server also generates a fulfillment message that ensures product delivery to the purchaser.
The commerce server also generates reports for the merchant and purchaser upon request. The reports summarize historical transaction data as requested.
Merchant content servers are simpler, easier to operate, and less expensive than the full-functioned servers traditionally used to maintain both content and transaction functionality in carrying out electronic commerce. The efficient division of functionality between the commerce server and the merchant content server thus advantageously streamlines the process of providing e-commerce services while lowering the cost thereof.